I, too, enjoyed the newsletter. However, in Tom Croat's narrative of his expedition to the Guianas, I couldn't help but notice how often he referred to a place that was remote but is now connected by road to developed areas, or that was wild but is now being developed. In the short term, this makes for convenience in collecting new plants; but it is part of the long-term habitat loss that makes plants (and everything else) rare. In this IAS newsletter we see in microcosm the global environmental crisis.
Haven't we all noticed this? Can we not all think of some of our favorite nature places, now disappeared under pavement, lawns, or industry? Can we not all think of some plant or animal we used to see a lot of in our younger days, that has now become a special, memorable sighting in the "islands" of preserved nature? I certainly can. And when I read the nature narratives of the past, even 40 or 50 years ago, I find it hard to believe there could ever have been such abundance.
As plant lovers, we are surely concerned about all this. We can grow our prized specimens, and that is good; but if they come to exist only in cultivated collections, apart from their ecological connections to the world, they, and we, are diminished.
Jason Hernandez
Naturalist-at-Large
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Message: 2
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2011 09:01:39 +0930
From: "Greg Ruckert" <
greg@alpacamanagement.com>
Subject: Re: [Aroid-l] Your Aroid Society Newsletter
To: <
huntington@aroid.org>, "Discussion of aroids"
<
aroid-l@www.gizmoworks.com>
Message-ID: <7CEE2D4631C7474BAB254E7529653F6F@greg32d9eee6c2>
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset=3D"iso-8859-1"
Recently I was put in my place on Facebook by an American aroid collector who felt that joining the IAS was a waste of money.
His comment was why would he spend his money on soomething he might only use a couple of times. I believe he spends thousands of dollars buying plants each year.
Well, I believe that the $25 annually is the best money that an aroid collector could spend if they genuinely want to learn about their plants.
The latest newsletter is fantastic. I congratulate the contributors and everyone that had anything to do with putting it together.
Thank you for your efforts I (and I am sure many others) really appreciate it.
Greg Ruckert,
Nairne,
South Australia
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